Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2015 November 25

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November 25

Low-performing schools

I remember there was a term for schools with extremely low pass rates or had a more-or-less useless curriculum. Can somebody remind me what this term is please? Contrib raati (talk) 15:38, 25 November 2015 (UTC)

In the UK, such schools are put into "Special measures", which has become a more generic term (euphemism?) for "failure" in official contexts. Tevildo (talk) 15:54, 25 November 2015 (UTC)

Thats not the word I was looking for. Contrib raati (talk) 16:18, 25 November 2015 (UTC)

At the higher education level, there are Diploma mills - with high pass rates (if you pay), but a useless curriculum (if any). --Stephan Schulz (talk) 16:34, 25 November 2015 (UTC)

Could it be sink school? No article, but presumably named with reference to sink estates. Googling sink school gives some British newspaper articles discussing them. Hassocks5489 (Floreat Hova!) 18:55, 25 November 2015 (UTC)

“We class schools, you see, into four grades: Leading School, First-rate School, Good School, and School. Frankly," said Mr Levy, "School is pretty bad...” ― Evelyn Waugh, Decline and Fall. Modern terminology in the UK is not much different. Dbfirs 20:42, 25 November 2015 (UTC)

How would the Turkish military "warn" a Russian fighter plane?

See2015 Russian Sukhoi Su-24 shootdown.How did Turkey issue "multiple warnings" to the Russian aircraft crew? Do enemy fighter planes and ground stations have a common frequency for talking in combat situations? Like the pilots or their ground controllers having a frequency (perhaps a scrambled channel) for talking to their own side and a different or a "universal" frequency for talking to the enemy like they would talk to a neutral airport? Would the "universal" receiver cut in even if they were talking to their home base? Do enemy pilots ever "trash talk" each other, or beg for mercy, or gloat when their missile hits the enemy, assuming they understand each other's speech? Edison (talk) 19:14, 25 November 2015 (UTC)

This story says the signal was in English on 243.0 MHz, the Military Air Distress channel. For friend-to-friend communications you would expect encrypted communications on milcom channels - in theatre that would often be satcom instead. -- Finlay McWalterᚠTalk 20:05, 25 November 2015 (UTC)

And in general there are plenty of things you can do besides using radio. Fly in front of them and do maneuvers to get the pilot's attention. Flash lights at the pilot. If the prospective target is a military plane, it will generally detect and warn the pilot if something locks targeting radar on the plane. Now, which of these techniques are used obviously depends on circumstances and rules of engagement. --71.119.131.184 (talk) 20:52, 25 November 2015 (UTC)

Yea, flying in front might be problematic both because they couldn't catch up with and pass those planes, and because they might then be targeted. That method works better with a slower, passenger plane. StuRat (talk) 21:26, 25 November 2015 (UTC)

In the link above the Turk supposedly speaking English is mostly unintelligible to me, a native speaker of English.It sounded like a bunch of barked mispronounced syllables Edison (talk) 02:19, 26 November 2015 (UTC)

• The audio is quite clear, "...you are approaching Turkish airspace, change your heading..." I find it quite odd that a native speaker of English would feign the inability to comprehend this. Perhaps a better place for this discussion would be an internet forum? I see no request here for a referenced source. μηδείς (talk) 02:55, 26 November 2015 (UTC)

• • It is highly accented and low in intelligibility, particularly the first 7 seconds. How would a Russian with a weak grasp of English understand this utterance by a Turk with a weak grasp of English? Edison (talk) 03:11, 26 November 2015 (UTC)

The Turk's English was perfectly fine. I didn't know the codes, but the "you are approaching Turkish airspace, change your heading" was perfectly clear. Given American English is the standard for international communication, maybe the Russian was simply not up to snuff? I have no point to make or dog in this fight, but to claim the Turk's message was garbled in the essential moment is simply false. I will not comment further, since I consider this a matter of fsct, not a POV I want to argue. μηδείς (talk) 04:49, 26 November 2015 (UTC)

Sounds like Edison's version got garbled along the way somehow, but if you can hear it clearly, that must be what was broadcast, unless somebody later went to the trouble of cleaning it up. StuRat (talk) 07:53, 26 November 2015 (UTC)

I would agree with Edison. I cannot make out the first 5 seconds at all. I can get some words from the next 2 seconds. Then "...you are approaching Turkish airspace, change your heading..." is reasonably clear, but with very unusual rhythm (as if read line by line by someone who does not know the language), and the rest is again very hard to understand (my guess is "to south"). How this would sound in the cockpit of a jet aircraft is another question again, although pilots should be used to the environmental noise. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 11:09, 26 November 2015 (UTC)

To me the first part sounds like a some numbers possibly with a letter or something else then something radar station then speaking something. That said I only listened after I'd read the discussion so can't rule being influenced by that for the radar station bit. Of course this is only 1 time of the allegedly 10 times or more the message was repeated. Looking a bit more, I find someone gave an explanation of what was said, one thought that comes to mind is that beyond having experience dealing with noise, one would assume military pilots (well any properly trained pilot) would also have some experience with what to expect from radio messages and the message sounds like it's mostly fairly standard and common even if it was read in a weird way.

Note that if you read the discussion there's some suggestion, supported by our article International distress frequency, that the 243 Mhz frequency is a NATO emergency frequency. However it's also suggested that it would be normal for aircraft operating in the vicinity of NATO areas to monitor the frequency even if they wouldn't use it themselves.

In any case, the intelligibility question could be a red herring as AFAIK the current Russian claim is not that they received a message but didn't know what was being said, but instead that they didn't receive any. (Although there's some suggestion in the discussion that Russia only denied receiving any warnings from the aircraft which shot them down, which could be true as the message in question was from a radar station.) Of course they also claim they never crossed into Turkish airspace even for those 17 seconds.

Nil Einne (talk) 17:28, 27 November 2015 (UTC)

And emergency aviation frequencies are supposed to only be used for emergencies, so any competent pilot should know to pay attention if someone is broadcasting on them. --71.119.131.184 (talk) 05:09, 26 November 2015 (UTC)